I've been playing these past few days with my August 2015 Paper Pumpkin kit: Chalk It Up To Love.
And I went a little crazy…
I made a decorative box of note cards (alternate layouts from the ones that are shown in the kit images above), 3 more alternate note cards, a 12×12 traditional scrapbook layout, another 12×12 page, a Project Life page, a wreath, a bunch of back-to-school items, a couple mini boxes, a string of pretty lights, and prepared my exclusive alternate projects for my personal subscribers. Those 12 exclusives got sent out a couple days ago to those that ordered that kit from me. This graphic shows peeks of just 9 of them…
Back in July, when I saw this kit at the Stampin' Up! Convention, I knew it would be one of my favorites. So I increased my subscription and ordered 7 boxes!! This is my son, Nicholas hauling them all in. The mailman, Joe couldn't fit them in our mailbox and had to deliver them to our door. LOL!
I didn't use ALL 7 boxes to make all my alternate projects (only 3), but I knew they would make great gifts. So I'm saving the 4 I didn't use for now.
I'm still working on editing my August Paper Pumpkin video (hoping to have it on YouTube and up on my blog here tomorrow), but I just want to warn you… I wasn't able to record much this month. The kids are not in school yet, so the quiet time was very hard to find. I had a friend lined up to take them one day, too. But her son got ill. So instead of putting all my August kit projects into videos, I recorded what I could and just took photos of the rest.
One of the projects that didn't make the video is this string of decorative lights. I purchased this strand of lights in the "bridal" area of my local JoAnn's Store. And then I embellished every other bulb with a flower or with fringes.
The embellishments on these lights were VERY easy to make. And wouldn't this decoration be great for a girl's birthday party, a baby shower, a wedding, etc…?!
I basically had three separate embellishments: a big flower combo, a smaller flower combo, and a circle of fringes.
For the flower combos, I used the die cut flowers from the kit (the large pink ones), 3 flower punches, card stock in the kit, and the 1/4" Handheld Circle punch. (See the supply list at the bottom of this post to find these items in my online store.)
I punched the extra pink flowers from the flower die-cut sheet in the kit and the black flowers from the tags in the kit.
Hint: punch the center 1/4" circle first, then punch the flower. This way your 1/4" circle ends up smack-dab in the center.
For the fringe décor, cut your black fringe strips from the kit into small sections. I separated mine into lengths of about 1-1/2" inches which gave me about 7 "fringes" in each section.
Then use the extra pink card stock from the flower die-cut sheets to cut out 1" x 1-1/2" strips.
Use your Paper Snips (scissors) to trim into your pink strips OR the Fringe Scissors shown below (if you have it) to make this step go even quicker. Then use a bone folder to curl the fringe and petals of the flowers. Add them to your light strand by wrapping them around the lights using a strong adhesive. The Fast Fuse worked for me. I also used the Fast Fuse on the underside of the flowers towards the center to attach the flowers to the lights. If these lights were outside, I would consider a stronger adhesive though. But the Fast Fuse should be fine for an indoor setting, and this way I can change out my embellishments for another theme in the future.
On this strand of 50 lights, I used 6 large flowers, 6 small flowers, and 12 circles of fringes (24 embellishments). I spaced them out like so…
- large flower
- regular light
- fringe
- regular light
- small flower
- regular light
- fringe
- regular light
- large flower
- regular light
- fringe
- regular light
- small flower
- regular light
- fringe
- regular light,…
I also had to share a couple miniature August Paper Pumpkin kit boxes that Nora Marin, a talented demonstrator on my team shared with me. Aren't they adorable?!
P.S. Just in case you are not a subscriber to Paper Pumpkin yet…Your first two kits are 50% off when you start your NEW subscription by September 10th and use the promo code: HALFOFF.
The Fine Print:
- For new subscribers only (new email addresses).
- Available for month-to-month subscriptions, not prepaid subscriptions.
- Discount applied to one kit per month for the first two months of a new subscription. After the first two months, the price for each month's kit will go to the regular price: $19.95.
- You need to visit PaperPumpkin.com to join.
- Enter the Promo Code, HALFOFF when you sign up.
- New subscribers must join by Thursday, September 10, 2015; 11:50 PM (MT).
Click here to learn more about Paper Pumpkin.
Click here to sign up for a subscription.
Additional supplies used (besides the contents of the August 2015 Paper Pumpkin kit) to make this string of lights project…
- String of "Bridal" lights (www.joann.com)
I love your decorated string of lights!!! How clever, fun, and just adorably cute! 🙂
Thanks, Tonya. *Ăś*
I always look forward to your paper pumpkin projects/videos! Thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you so much, Allison. I appreciate you kind words.